The relief of failing
by ginnys01
Summary: Harry isn't doing great at his muggle school. Could it be that Harry has test anxiety or is it something more?


AN: one-shot written for The Houses Competition round 1

House: Badgers

Class Subject: Transfiguration

Story Category: Drabble

Prompt: [Prompt] Failing a test

Word count: 832

Thanks to my fellow Badgers ViolaMoon, DarylDixon'sgirl1985 and gajevyaddict for beta-ing.

* * *

When the teacher got the class list a couple of weeks before the start of the year, she quickly skimmed it. She was hoping for the easy class, but she was out of luck. Her class consisted not only of Dudley Dursley and his friends, but it also had Harry Potter. To say Harry and Dudley didn't get along, was an understatement. When looking through the notes of previous teachers, she noticed that even though Harry had worse marks then Dudley, he was placed in a higher workgroup. Dudley's reports always had positively phrased comments such as: 'Well done. Or I can see you are improving.' But Harry whose points were only slightly worse; always said the same thing: 'You can do better.'

Miss Lorraine quickly realised why. Harry didn't actively participate in lessons, but when looking at his books, the answers were perfect. He knew his material. Dudley, on the other hand, didn't even try to participate. He would spend all lessons talking to his friends or annoying the people sitting around him, no matter what she tried. Looking at the workbooks of both students Dudley's marks made sense, but the comments didn't. Harry's marks, on the other hand, didn't make sense, but the comments did.

When tests came, Harry was without a doubt out ill the day of the test. The next day she would tell the students their scores, but she didn't give the tests back until Harry had caught up. Without fail, Harry always did worse than Dudley.

Today she was doing an unannounced test. She wanted to see how Harry did when he took it with the rest of the class. As soon as she had announced that they would have a maths test, Harry went white. Why was he so nervous? Miss Lorraine was surprised, he hadn't been nervous for any other test, or at least not as noticeably nervous. Could his low scores be because of nerves? Could Harry have test anxiety? Did he feel unprepared?

*hphphp*

Harry was nervous, but not because of the reasons that his teacher thought. Harry was afraid of doing better than Dudley. Why hadn't the teacher warned them that there was a test? Harry hated taking tests on the same day as Dudley. It was, after all, easier to do worse on a test if you knew what the other person scored. If Harry did end up doing better than Dudley it was put down to getting an easier test. But the same test on the same day? That was hard. Harry had to guess how well Dudley would do and then do worse.

Harry turned his page over to look at the questions.

19 + 38 =

266 + 198 =

19 + 25 + 41 =

90 - 54 =

49 + 27 =

These sums were so easy. Harry looked over at Dudley, hoping that Dudley would be answering the questions successfully. Unfortunately, Harry wasn't lucky enough. Dudley sat looking at his page as if he had received a page filled with different languages. Harry decided he needed to answer all sums incorrectly.

The next minutes were spent subtracting, adding and multiplying numbers at random to get incorrect answers. When Harry finished, he had a look at his answers. Were they wrong enough to not receive half points? Were they answered random enough so it wasn't obvious where he went wrong?

19 + 38 = 41

266 + 198 = 352

19 + 25 + 41 = 45

90 - 54 = 46

49 + 27 = 25

When Harry was happy with his answers, he continued on to the next 5 questions. Once again Harry thought that the questions were easy enough, but would Dudley think they were easy?

90/126 = ?/7

39/91 = 3/?

1/6 = ?/24

9/12 = 54/?

18/25 = 126/?

Taking his time to read the questions, Harry tried to decide which questions to answer incorrectly, and which ones to answer correctly. In the end, he decided to just take a guess on what could look correct, but not do the maths. With a bit of luck, he wouldn't have too many correct answers

90/126 = 4/7

39/91 = 3/13

1/6 = 4/24

9/12 = 54/74

18/25 = 126/

Just as Harry was about to write his last answer, the teacher told them all to stop writing. With a relieved sign Harry stopped writing.

*hphphp*

Miss Lorraine saw the relief appear on Harry's face as soon as she told them to stop writing. The anxiety, fear, and concentration that had been present on his face had gone in a second. The teacher had never seen that amount of concentration on Harry's face before, not even in lessons when he managed to do most of the sums correctly. Putting her students to work, the teacher decided to quickly mark the tests. This way she would satisfy her curiosity, and stop the students worrying too much.

It didn't take long to correct the tests and hand them back, but was Miss Lorraine wrong when she thought she saw Harry look relieved when he discovered he had failed?


End file.
